1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for transmitting, processing, and/or storing digital images using minimal bandwidth, processor overhead, and/or storage capacity. In particular, the present invention relates to a new data compression apparatus and method that can be utilized to effectively compress multimedia images and the accompanying audio for efficient transmission across a limited bandwidth transmission line, thereby providing real-time multimedia compression, transmission, decompression, and viewing at a second location.
2. Description of the Related Art
The present invention substantially advances known techniques for transmitting, storing, and processing digital multimedia images through the use of novel compression and decompression techniques. The compression and decompression techniques of the present invention are applicable for use in nearly all image related data transmission, processing, and storage technologies, as the techniques of the present invention provide for efficient and accurate digital image transmission, storage, and processing through currently available transmission, storage, and processing means.